Playing a Highfalutin’ Course, When You’re Lowfalutin’ Me

I think I speak for every public golfer – I love playing exclusive golf courses. For us, getting out on these gems is a wonderful treat.

But exclusive courses can be a minefield of gaffes for a public course hack like me. Just parking my car poses a problem. Once, I was pulling into a parking space when I noticed every single car around me was a Mercedes, BMW, Jaguar … geees, is that a Rolls? I parked down the hill in the secondary lot.

Then there’s the “only change your golf shoes in the locker room like you have some class” rule. If this were a public course, I’d put my golf shoes on in my car like everyone else (once I was so lazy I actually left my house in my spikes). But not at the private course. While the bag-drop attendant was taking my clubs out of my trunk, I asked where the driving range was. He said, “There’s the ladies locker room. After you’re done in there, we’ll take you to the driving range.” Translation: “whatever you do, lady, don’t change your shoes in your car.” I own a shoe bag for just these occasions.

And speaking of shoes, after a round the private course member drops his / her shoes off with their shoe attendant. The attendant meticulously cleans and polishes them, changing shoe laces and replacing spikes where necessary. Then, so the player doesn’t have to go even 10 feet out of their way, they’re neatly returned to the player’s locker.

We public course players have reduced this entire process to smacking our shoes together in the parking lot.

And lastly, don’t be alarmed when everyone at the Highfalutin course says, “Good morning.” While even we public hackers can be pleasant, at public courses a likely response to a stranger saying “good morning” is “Are you talking to me?”